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Dallas J. Carter

Tonight marks the start of the 2018/19 season and excitement is in the air. Yet, some teams have more to be excited for when it comes to expecting a postseason appearance. Here are the odds for each NBA team to make the playoffs (via the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook):

Have $300 laying around? You could put it on the Rams to make the playoffs and pocket $100 at the end of the season should you win. Looking for another team to miss or make the playoffs, we got you covered. Check out the lines from The Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas:

Tom Brady will take the field against the Texans as the favorite for the 50th straight game in week 1. The last time he and the Patriots were underdogs heading into a contest was week 2 of 2015 against the Bills in a game where New England was +2. The Patriots ended up winning 40-32.

Over the last 50 games, including the playoffs, Brady is 40-10 overall, beating opponents by an average of 10.7 points per game, as Evan Abrams The Action Network relays. He’s thrown 107 passing touchdowns and only 22 interceptions during that streak.

Brady has gone 32-16-2 against the spread, covering the line by 2.4 points per game. If a bettor would have wagered $100 on each of his games, they would have made $1,563.

Only three teams have beat Brady twice during the streak: the Dolphins, Eagles, and Broncos. In fact, as Abrams notes, the NFC East is the only division to bettors have been able to make money wagering against Brady.

Kurt Warner holds the longest streak of being favored with 55 starts and Brady should break that this season, as he’s projected to be favored in every game leading up to the Pats week 15 matchup.

Sports betting is legal in more states than ever before and college football is in full swing. David Purdum of ESPN.com put together a piece (well worth an entire read) that broke down where the public has their money on this season. Let’s take a look at the highlights:

Ohio State has more bets on them to win the national championship than any other program at the both the Westgate SuperBook and MGM.

Clemson has the most money on them to win it all at Caesars Place, MGM, and William Hill. The Tigers have a whooping 22% of William Hill’s liability on them.

Clemson opened as a +125 favorite to make the playoffs, though sharp money came in and pushed the line to -180 “We took some sharp money on Clemson,” Westgate director John Murray told Purdum. “I think we opened Clemson a little bit too high, because we had guys immediately come in and bet them at +125 and even money.”

The largest season-win total bet the Westgate SuperBook had taken was on Oregon State. A house player, meaning a VIP casino guest, bet to win $80,000 on the Beavers to win less than 2.5 games at -130.

Murray told Purdum that a sharp player bet Oklahoma at 6-1 to make the college football playoffs. The line has since been moved to 4-1.

The Broncos paid Case Keenum starter money to come in and create stability at the position and he looked exactly like the player they wanted during a half of work on Friday against the Redskins. He completed 12-of-18 passes for 148 yards, leading Denver to three scoring drives.

Keenum clearly has a favorite receiver, targeting Emmanuel Sanders eight times during the contest. Here is his target breakdown from the game:

Sanders caught four of the targets for 61 yards and he added a rushing touchdown. Thomas is going higher in drafts, but Sanders is the guy to own and provides tremendous value with an ESPN ADP OF 67, though he’s likely to rise over the next week.

Here’s more from the Broncos as well as other teams who took the field on Friday night:

Courtland Sutton looked the part of a pro, hauling in all three of his targets for 45 yards. He needs to be drafted for the upside.

The Lions‘ offense struggled yet again with Matt Stafford completing 9-of-18 passes for 113 yards. His receivers dropped a few balls and no pass-catcher came away from the game with a good performance. Kenny Golladay and Golden Tate each had four targets, most on the team.

Evan Engram picked up where he left off last season, catching three of four targets before suffering a concussion.

ESPN’s Matthew Berry believes that Patrick Mahomes could be this season’s Carson Wentz, a second-year QB that finds fantasy football stardom. Berry cites Mahomes ability to run with the ball (he had double-digit rushing scores in each of his final two college seasons) and Andy Reid’s system as reasons for optimism.

Over the last 10 years, Reid’s QBs have scored 2755.4 fantasy points (ESPN scoring) which would be the fifth most out of all NFL team had Reid been his own squad. Yes, there’s chatter of Mahomes making too many mistakes for the Chiefs and surely he won’t be as risk-adverse as Alex Smith. However, 19 QBs are going ahead of him on average in ESPN drafts and with this kind of upside, its difficult to find that the risk is not worth the potential reward.

Berry’s final Love/Hate column is worth a read. The longtime ESPN scribe is shifting his work more to TV and podcasting and it’ll be sad not to read this column on a weekly basis. Make sure you check out his last one and if you can’t read the whole thing, we’ve got you covered with some of Berry’s fantasy analysis below:

In three of the past four seasons, Redskins coach Jay Gruden has been top-12 in passing percentage and Alex Smith comes to town with at least 15 fantasy points in over 60% of his fantasy starts. That’s more than Russell Wilson (59.4%), Philip Rivers (59.4%) and Cam Newton (51.6%) among other, as Berry notes.

Be cautious of starting Ben Roethlisberger on the road. The Steelers QB is averaging 23.26 fantasy points in Pittsburg vs. 13.97 fantasy points on the road over the past four seasons.

Josh McCown, Jay Cutler, Eli Manning and Joe Flacco are among the QBs who had more games with multiple TD passes than Derek Carr last season, Berry adds.

Saquon Barkley should be a great fit for Pat Shurmur’s fantasy-friendly offense. As Berry points out, while Shurmur was in Minnesota and Philly, his offenses ranked in the top six in red zone rush percentage.

Berry is high on Raiders wide receiver Amari Cooper, citing how Jon Gruden has had at least one 1,000-yard receiver in each of the 11 years he’s been a head coach.

Some of Marvin Jones Jr.’s production appears to be tied to the health of Kenny Golliday. In the five games last season that Golladay was out, Jones averaged 10.2 targets. But in the 11 games, Golladay played, Jones averaged just 5.1 targets.

The Panthers talked about revving up Christian McCaffrey‘s workload and if their first preseason game was any indication, he’ll see plenty of action this season. The second-year pro was in for all 14 of Cam Newton‘s snaps, Adam Levitan of Draft Kings notes. McCaffrey got four carries and was targeted twice in the team’s melee vs. the Bills last weekend.

Carolina insisted on getting value out of their draft-day investment last season, rolling McCaffrey out on the field for 757 offensive snaps, a figure that only Le’Veon Bell, Todd Gurley, and Carlos Hyde surpassed. No RB received more targets in the passing game than McCaffrey last season and although the rookie wasn’t particularly efficient once he caught the ball (ranked 45th in Football Outsider’s YAC+ metric), he remains a centerpiece in the offense as a dual threat out of the backfield.

If the team hands him more work on the ground this season in addition to his passing duties, he has the potential to compete with the Le’Veon Bells and Todd Gurleys atop the fantasy football running back realm. His average ADP is No. 18 overall, according to ESPN.